Easter Sunday (2)

Easter Is a Very important becasue it reminds us of the most important event in ‘all of history!’

It’s so amazing that you all need to help me in saying

Easter is the most Important event in ‘ALL OF HISTORY’!

Why?

Because at Easter Jesus died on a cross and rose again!

Easter is the key to all the good news about Jesus!

We visited my brother - we call him crazy uncle Ben for short.

He’s bougth a house in Bury - and our house warming gift was a key safe for outside his house becasue he’s alwasy loosing his keys.

And he has stayed at our house on about 4 occasions for a few months.

And do you know how many times he lost our house keys?

Yes - you got it - 4 times!

Without a key - you can’t get in the house!

And without the very first Easter - we can’t get into God’s house -

we can’t be friends with God - becasue we don’t have a key!

We can’t find forgivenss,

and enjoy God’s great love.

We can’t be with him in heaven when we die - unless we have the key.

And the key is the first Easter.

So - it’s important we know about what we are celebrating at Easter.

It’s important we know all the essential ingredients to the first Easter story.

And the reading from 1 Cor 15 told us the essential ingredients.

The 1st Ingredient to Easter is - Christ Died for our sins

1 Corinthians 15:3 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

This is a really really important ingredient.

It’s like forgettingto put flour in your bread machine when you make bread!

This is what you get!

A sloppy mess!

You see, unless Jesus - the only perfect man to ever live has died for our sins, and faces the the punishement we deserve from God,

then we are a sloppy mess!

We still do wrong things,

we still don’t put God first in all our decisions and actions.

We will face God’s right punishment.

And so we need someone to take our punishment for us.

And Easter reminds us, that if we realise how much God loves us,

then we can believe in Jesus and he dies for our sins so we don’t have to!

Ingredient 1 - Christ Jesus - died for our sins! - Ingredient 1 - without it we;re a sloppy mess.

The 2nd Ingredient to Easter is - Christ was buried -

as we read in v4.

Jesus really died.

It wasn’t some magic trick that everyone thought he was dead.

The ROman soldiers who killed him knew what they were doing.

And so Jesus was buried.

If Jesus wasn’t really dead and burried - and it was some sort or trick, then it owul dbe like forgetting to put the salt and sugar in your bread recipe,

It would sort of look right - but when you taste it

does someone want to taste it..

you realise something is not right!

Jesus really had to die and so he was then buried in a tomb - like a cave.

If he wasn’t really buried, then our sins would not have been firgiven - and as we’ll see in our next ingredient - death would not have been defeated.

The 2nd Ingredient to Easter is - Christ was buried -

The 3rd Ingredient to Easter is- Christ was raised on the 3rd day

Now if Jesus had not risen from the dead - then what hope would we have?

When we die - we would have no idea what would happen next.

But becasue Jesus rose from the dead it measn he defeated death itself!

Death could not hold him!

He rose again.

Which means we too - will rise again.

Death is not the end.

Easter is amazing becasue Jesus rose from the dead and so will we.

Easter would be nothing without the resurection.

Like we need yeast to enable a loaf to rise - so we need the resurection of Jesus for us to rise!

here is my bread without any yeast!

Flat - solid - horrible.

But Jesus is nothing like that -he’s not flat, dead, horrible!

He loves us - enough to die for our sin.

He died for us - so dead he had to be buiried - so that we don’t have to face God’s Judgemnet.

He rose for us - so that we too will rise and have the greatest, eternal and perfect, and joyful life - with Jesus himself, our saviour, friend, Lord and King.!

So the The 3rd Ingredient to Easter is- Christ was raised on the 3rd day

Can you rememebr them so far

1 - Jesus died forour sins

2- Jesus was buried

3 - Jesus rose again

And the 4th ingredient to Easter is that - Christ appeared

It is essential that Jesus appeared - because otherwise no-one would believe that he rose!

1 Corinthians 15:5–8 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

When this lette

this is not made up, and it is not secretly revaled to some through dreams or revelations - it is historically verifiable!

It would be like leaving the loaf in the bread machine. We wouldn’t know about it - or be able to enjoy it.

(Film - the Cross of Christ)